


Incurable

by glim



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-14
Updated: 2010-07-14
Packaged: 2017-10-10 13:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Arthur is a very grumpy sort of patient, and Merlin provides professional, and then non-professional, fussing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incurable

"You're still here?"

"Just barely. I'm on my way out. Give me another half hour."

Morgana _tsk_ed at Arthur. She closed his office door behind her with a muted click and came to stand next to his desk as she slipped on the heavy green wool coat she wore now that the autumn chill had set in. "You don't look ready to leave."

"You're still here," Arthur pointed out and spent a few more moments than strictly necessary closing down his email program before turning to Morgana. Who, admittedly, did look ready to head home. "Actually, that does beg the question: why are you still here? Don't you have that... that thing with Gwen tonight?"

"What? Oh, no, the school event was last week. Do try and keep track. Besides," Morgana said, "I came in late today. And you?"

Arthur scrubbed a hand through his hair, then scrubbed both hands over his face. There. Right behind his eyes and at the back of his sinuses. He could feel the dull start of a headache. Worried it would show on his face, he turned back to his computer to begin shutting it down, clicking through windows and scowling at half-finished documents. "I have the Sydney trip to prep for. I can't arrive without having read most of the materials."

"But ... wasn't your father handling that? He certainly was as of last week after rejecting my offer to go."

"Right, yes, but apparently the publishing world in on the verge of collapse, yet again. So. I'm off to the Sydney branch for their annual review."

"You do lead a secret jet-setting sort of life, don't you?" Morgana's expression softened to one of sympathy when Arthur didn't reply, but rubbed at his face once more. "When do you leave?"

"Thursday. I have a meeting Wednesday afternoon, then I leave early on Thursday, and I should be back Monday night." Somehow, Arthur resisted the urge to press the heals of his hands into his eyes and wish the increasing headache and exhaustion away. "You know, when I was at uni, I wanted to be a writer, not a publisher."

"Arthur, your poetry was _hideous_. No amount of nepotism would've resulted in you getting your own book deal." Her hand rested on his shoulder for a moment, tightened, and reached up to smooth over his hair. "Come over for dinner tonight. Gwen's cooking, so at least it'll be edible."

~

Morgana wasn't wrong.

Arthur's attempts at poetry were completely hideous. Full of morbid adolescent anxiety, the desperate desire to rid himself of his father's influence, and the even more desperate desire to write the world into some sense, discernible through broken verse and experimental meter.

He'd fared slightly better at fiction, and substantially better at literary criticism, but after getting a master's degree in English and realizing he had no desire for a doctorate in literature, it had been easy enough to take his place at Penn &amp; Lafayette. Eventually, Arthur supposed, he'd take over half of the business from his father, as Morgana had hers.

She'd also been right about dinner being decent when cooked by Gwen. At some point in their late twenties, they'd all realized that skidding through meals of toast and beans and random egg-based creations was not the way to live one's culinary life and Gwen, dear, brave Gwen, had decided she'd try cooking classes. It had been hilarious and sometimes amazing to eat the creations she'd learned in the course, which, towards the end, were for the most part quite delicious.

But, well, that had been when Arthur was still with Charles, and there'd been four of them, and two bottles of wine had been a reasonable accompaniment to whatever Gwen had concocted for them most weekend evenings.

Now it seemed a bit too indulgent, especially when Morgana invited Arthur over for dinner on Monday night. Morgana and he had more and more early mornings at the publishing house, while Gwen had a whole classroom full of year threes to deal with. Thus, late nights and excess wine were not part of the equation any more, either.

So. Yes. She was right about the hideous poetry of his past, and about his present need to have dinner cooked for him on a Monday night every now and then. Not that Arthur couldn't manage a decent meal on his own; odds were, however, that he'd throw together a salad or pasta dish, fall asleep in front of the telly, and tell himself the next morning that he'd cook a real meal over the weekend.

She also turned out to be not wrong, and infuriatingly so, when she paused half-way through their meal of peach salsa chicken and roast potato to point her fork at Arthur and inform him that he sounded like he was coming down with a rather ill-timed head cold.

~

Arthur glanced around the waiting room. For some reason, he'd expected it to be crowded, but mid-morning on a Wednesday turned out to be a decent time for him to make an appointment at the doctor's surgery.

To say Morgana and Gwen had bullied him into coming in wouldn't've been a terrible, gross exaggeration. He had a cold, for heaven's sake, not some life-threatening illness that would result in a humiliating death scene and his father having to fetch his body from a hospital morgue in Sydney. Plus, there was that meeting to be attended later on in the afternoon - Arthur couldn't miss that, not with his flight leaving tomorrow and too many loose ends still left hanging.

He felt stupid. He also felt rather run down with sore throat, congestion, and the sudden, unpredictable urge to start coughing or sneezing at any given moment. But, really, stupid was in strong competition with run down at the moment.

"Ah, Arthur. Good morning." The nurse filling in for the receptionist smiled as soon as Arthur introduced himself. Like he had any right to be that cheerful. "You're here for... oh, you've caught cold?" Or that sympathetic.

Christ. Arthur pressed the heel of his hand into his right eye and willed it to stop watering. "It's not really bad or anything. Just a cold." A flush of embarrassment warmed Arthur's neck and face and he silently cursed his traitorous immune system. Who caught cold right before going on a business trip after having been perfectly healthy for at least the past six months?

"Weren't you in here recently with a case of strep throat?" The nurse flipped through Arthur's file with interest. "Mm. Just a few months ago. You haven't been having a great year, have you?"

"My year's been wonderful, thank you."

Fine. _Five_ months. Maybe four. But that case of strep hadn't been his fault, but that of his obnoxious younger cousins and their disgusting germs. Not, he decided, that the nurse needed to know that.

Not, he also supposed, that the nurse wanted to know that.

Especially not... God. He really felt stupid. Entirely, utterly stupid, with the way he flushed and the way his voice creaked, and how he had to blow his nose halfway through his conversation with the nurse, who wasn't even supposed to be up at the front desk, but of course he was. Of course the receptionist was out the day Arthur came in sounding and looking like rubbish, and of course the nurse on duty would be all sympathy and benevolent smiles and brilliant blue eyes and rumpled dark hair.

And. Fuck. Why did Merlin only ever work when Arthur had some ridiculous illness that made him look and sound revolting?

Because the universe hated him and wanted him to be dismal, Arthur had decided the last time he'd trudged into his GP's office and found himself explaining to Merlin his health woes. It was probably punishment for developing huge schoolboy crushes on cute nurses who probably already had partners who knew how to do things like cook meals and write poetry. Edible meals and decent poetry, Arthur thought dejectedly, fancy vegetable dishes and villanelles, without the added bonus of snuffly head colds or laryngitis.

"Arthur? All right, Arthur?"

Ah. No, he really wasn't all right at all. But it was probably just his cold talking, telling him how Merlin had some wonderful, healthy, talented partner, who got to curl up next to Merlin in bed and do stupid, silly things like talk before they both fell asleep or see Merlin's frantic bed hair first thing in the morning.

"Arthur?"

Actually, wait, no, that was _Merlin_ talking to him. Arthur coughed briefly. "Sorry. I wasn't... What was that you were nattering on about?" It had been the weather a few minutes ago, while Arthur was trying to fill out the intake form.

"I just said that there's no wait and that I could take you back to the examination room." Amusement replaced sympathy on Merlin's face. "Come on, let's see what we can do about your suffering."

"Oh, right. Right, go on, then." Arthur started to unbutton his coat, shivered, and let it remain closed over his chest while he followed Merlin down the corridor.

Merlin tugged the sleeves of the navy thermal tee he wore under his grey scrubs over his slim, pale wrists as they walked and turned to Arthur over his shoulder. "Yeah, sorry, something's wrong with the heating out here. Examination room's warm, though, so don't worry."

Arthur's breath snagged as he caught sight of the smile that edged Merlin's mouth, of the glint of the silver wire frames of his glasses in the corridor's light, of the fine, soft, dark hair at his temple, then at the nape of his neck, against his fair skin. He disguised the snagged breath with a cough, which turned to a real cough, and by the time they got to the room, Merlin was offering Arthur both a chair and a box of tissues.

"Don't fuss at me."

"It's sort of my job to fuss. Professional fussing. Putting up with grumpy patients."

"I'm not grumpy. How do any of the patients put up with you?" Arthur crossed his arms over his chest and looked away while Merlin re-opened his file. "I just want to make sure I can travel. I have to leave on a business trip tomorrow."

"Yes, well, most of our patients are quite fond of me, really." Merlin pushed his glasses up his nose as he read, made a little _hm_ sound, and closed the folder. "Doctor should be along shortly." He moved from the desk to the door, but paused with one of his curious half-glancing smiles before he left. "Oh, and if I don't see you on the way out – do feel better soon, Arthur."

~

"I'm not usually like this."

Merlin scrawled something else down on Arthur's chart and didn't look up at him. "Like what?"

"_This_," Arthur repeated and brandished his handful of tissues at Merlin. "Ill." He snatched the tissues back to cover a sneeze and suppressed the urge to groan at Merlin. "Pardon me."

"Bless. Of course not." When he finally decided Arthur deserved more attention than the file, a tiny smile quirked at the corner of his mouth, just enough for Arthur to wish he could say something to cause Merlin to smile more fully. "Where were you between now and your last visit? You said you had a business trip, yeah?"

Arthur nodded and cleared his throat. "Australia," he replied, and cleared his throat again. He felt terrible, there was no denying it, and the frown on Merlin's face told Arthur he sounded even worse.

"Australia? No wonder you're about ready to die after that long of a flight. Here, let me take your temperature."

"It's just a cold." Well. It had been just a cold when he left for Sydney last week; he'd even been feeling better for a couple days after he arrived. "Maybe a rather persistent one."

"You're usually this difficult, though, aren't you?" Merlin reached for the thermometer, waited for Arthur to lean in closer, and slipped it gently into his ear. "So. Australia. You still had the cold while you were down there? And... it got worse again on the flight home?" Merlin made a small, thoughtful sound. "Oh, yeah, you're running a fever. Did you get back to England yesterday?"

Arthur hesitated. "Not really..."

"Not - okay. When did you get home? And how long have you been feeling miserable?" Merlin frowned at him, and something that looked almost like worry and sympathy softened his expression.

It made Arthur's stomach go a bit unsteady, to think that Merlin might worry over him, that he might notice Arthur had spent the time since he'd returned home from Sydney completely miserable and full of headache and with a cold he couldn't seem to shake. The only way to quell the sensation was to remind himself - repeatedly - that it was Merlin's job to be concerned. Professional fussing, remember?

"Monday. Monday night, really late," Arthur added when Merlin frowned again and looked more concerned than any head cold Arthur could catch would ever merit. "So it's not like I could've come in. If I needed to."

"Which, I'm thinking? You did." Merlin peered at Arthur over the rims of glasses and held his gaze, effectively preventing any further protest Arthur might attempt to make. "Right. Lingering congestion, cough, sore throat.... you're running a fever... anything else?"

Arthur shrugged. "... headache."

"Right, yeah. Pretty bad?" Merlin sighed a little when Arthur nodded. "You've been eating? Probably not."

"I-"

"Hm?"

"Not really," Arthur conceded. "The flight back was wretched. I haven't felt like eating. I had some tinned soup."

Merlin hummed to himself in that obnoxious (endearing, too endearing to be admitted) manner he had and added yet another note to the already excessive ones he'd taken on Arthur. Arthur started to point that out, but settled back into his seat after he got hit with another powerful sneeze.

"Bless you. Gaius should be along in a few minutes, so just sit tight. Here." Merlin pushed the box of tissues closer to Arthur and shook his head when Arthur snuffled a protest. "You know I can tell that you'll probably need them."

~

Merlin, like Morgana, seemed to have the annoying habit of being not wrong about Arthur. Who needed the tissues badly enough that Gaius sent him home with the box, along with a prescription for heavy-duty decongestants and antibiotics for a sinus infection.

He had to fetch more tissues and throat sweets on the way home, and decided he was too exhausted to be embarrassed that, in the span of a week, he had to make two trips to Boots for nearly the same exact supplies.

At least, at home, there was tea, and the opportunity to spread out the remaining reports from the Sydney trip over the coffee table, where they could sit while Arthur pretended to gaze at them instead of at the mindless afternoon programs on telly.

And gaze he did, while his tea cooled and his mind wandered back to the oddly tender way Merlin sometimes glanced at him for the briefest of moments.

The things about Merlin was...

Actually, even in his healthiest and most non-feverish of moments, Arthur had no clue what it was about Merlin.

He was gorgeous, in a distinct, almost unassuming way that always surprised Arthur when he noticed - again - the blue of his eyes or the angle of his wrist, the curl of his hair behind his ears, or the fullness of his smile. And he was gentle, and serious about his work, and he had that inimitable way of getting Arthur to reveal how poorly he felt.

Merlin wasn't like... Well. He wasn't like Charles, and Charles had been a good partner before his and Arthur's lives had found different directions. Charles hadn't been fussy at all, and had been more apt to leave Arthur alone when he felt poorly rather than put up with Arthur's protests that he didn't feel poorly and didn't want to be fussed after.

Merlin, Arthur thought, wouldn't be like that.

But Arthur didn't know Merlin, not really; he didn't really know the way Merlin acted or the way he thought, what sorts of conversations or television or music or food he enjoyed.

Suddenly feeling both dull with fever and sad for no reason he could name, Arthur abandoned his work and his cooling tea to stretch himself out on the sofa and close his eyes. He'd taken the rest of the week off; he could work tomorrow, when he'd feel better and less likely to slip into odd bouts of fever-induced longing.

~

"Could you hand me the... Oh. Hey, Arthur."

Arthur's hand stopped halfway to the organic pasta sauce and he turned to look at the man standing next to him. It took a moment for him to realize what he was doing and at whom he was staring, and when he did, he felt that odd, shaky feeling at the pit of his stomach again.

"You look different," Arthur blurted, and, to cover his awkwardness, reached for the marinara again.

"You really didn't think I wore scrubs all the time, did you? Were you the sort of little boy who thought his teachers lived at school?" Merlin tipped his head to the side, smiled at Arthur, and then squinted up at the jars of sauce. He wasn't wearing his glasses, either, and looked strangely younger with them. "You really were, weren't you?"

Arthur refused to dignify that comment with a reply. First, because, no, he absolutely never thought such a thing, not after his first year in primary school, anyway. Second, because he found himself cataloging silently all the ways in which Merlin looked different.

Arthur thought, perhaps, if he could remember things like the way Merlin's hair was ruffled from the wind, or how he had on about a hundred layers of clothing (grey tee shirt, blue button up shirt, darker blue jumper, a scarf of some soft blend of blue and grey, all matched up with a pair of jeans and corduroy blazer that both looked worn and comfortable), or that he had chocolate, pasta, spinach, about a dozen other fruits and veg, and two different cheeses in his shopping basket, then he could somehow figure out a little bit more of what Merlin was like. And if that little bit more of knowledge, of understanding, only made Arthur's stomach tighten with excitement and desire that much more, well... that was something else Arthur could hold inside his memory.

"Of course I didn't. I was just surprised, that's all. I don't think I've ever seen you do anything mundane like buy groceries."

"Which would explain why you expect to see me in scrubs and with medical charts all the time."

"I do _not_. I..."

Merlin laughed, low and quiet, and brushed his hand against Arthur's as he went to fetch his own jar of pasta sauce. "I know. But it's not like I've had the chance to see you outside my work, either."

That made Arthur flush, embarrassed all over again at having been reminded that up until now, Merlin had only seen him at his very worst. In all his cold-ridden or sinus-infected glory, with his pasty skin or runny nose or near complete lack of voice.

Arthur bit his lip and glanced down at his own shopping basket. Milk, bread, bagged salad, marinara. It was probably obvious he lived alone and had no idea what dinner was going to look like tonight. Or the idea that it wouldn't look much different from the ingredients in his basket.

At least he didn't look a complete mess this morning. He'd actually put on real clothes after spending two days working from home while trying to get rid of the sinus infection. He did sound awful, though, and when he coughed, he turned away from Merlin to try and make it less obvious that he was in middle of getting over his cold.

"Sorry," Arthur croaked once the spasm ended, cleared his throat, and blinked when he caught the same small, soft look on Merlin's face that he'd had in the physician's office. "I... I'm fine. Coughing a bit still."

"It's all right, don't apologize." Merlin smiled, then turned away himself for a second to rake one hand through his already messy, dark hair. "Do you want - or, do you need tea, if your throat's still sore?"

"It's fine." Arthur cleared his throat again and forced himself not to wince at how coughing had roughed his throat up all over again. Really, like Merlin needed to see him like that in the middle of his trip to the shops. "And. Oh. No, no, that's... I'm fine. I should get going, really."

"Oh, right, yeah. Your perishables..."

Arthur glanced down at his basket again and followed Merlin's gaze to his pathetic bag of salad and jar of pasta sauce.

Well.

No matter. It wasn't like Merlin actually noticed. Except, he probably did. He saw that Arthur really was terrible at taking care of himself, and took it upon himself to offer Arthur tea out of some misplaced sense of sympathy.

Arthur excused himself quickly thereafter and told himself the only disappointment he saw on Merlin's face was a projection of his own.

~

Once Arthur encountered Merlin at the market, he started encountering him everywhere.

It was remarkable.

Arthur had lived in this neighborhood for a little over a year, after he'd moved out of his too small flat into a house that was slightly too large for one person. There'd been countless trips to look at paint swatches and IKEA furniture, and once the furniture had arrived and been assembled, trips to allow Morgana and Guinevere to buy him things like throw pillows and extra blankets and odd little kitchen gadgets nobody would ever use.

"It's like you're throwing me a bridal shower," Arthur had remarked, and rolled his eyes at the sigh his cousin and her partner had exchanged.

"Well, it's not like you'll ever decide you have time to purchase your own garlic press or trick some poor young man into marrying you," Morgana had replied and tossed him a set of tea towels that matched the sage green and cream colors she'd approved for the kitchen.

But. Yes. Remarkable, after having lived in a house that, after a year, still felt as if it were just that much too large for him, after having spent a year getting his groceries and coffee and take-away at various locations near his house, to start finding himself in the same places as Merlin.

The same everyday sort of places, not just the surgery, where it had been easy for Arthur to tamp down the shaky, uncertain feeling in his stomach that threatened to bubble up warm and uncontrollable. Seeing Merlin when he was doing his marketing or banking sent a shock through Arthur. He wasn't a fool; he knew Merlin had a life outside work.

He hadn't considered that it was the sort of life that could include Arthur.

~

"Aren't you going to introduce me?" Morgana handed Arthur his cup of tea and sat down across from him and Merlin at the cafe table. "I leave you for a minute and you're already meeting people you know."

"We're not exactly close -"

"Sure we are," Merlin amended for Arthur and directed a warm, open smile toward Morgana. "Hello."

Arthur quickly got over his moment of dumbfoundedness and nodded. "Ah, right. Merlin, this my cousin, Morgana, the Lafayette of Penn &amp; Lafayette. Morgana, this is Merlin."

"Pleased to meet you. No, stay," Morgana said when Merlin started to shift his chair. "You have your book, Arthur has his paper, and I've been asked to help judge the year three story contest. We can all sit together. If you don't mind, that is."

"I'm far from minding," Merlin replied, and this time directed his smile toward Arthur and held it until Arthur smiled back, the shaky, bubbly feeling reaching up into his chest.

~

"Vanilla cappuccino, decaf," Arthur ordered for Merlin the third Saturday morning they found themselves together at the tiny cafe just outside the city center, "and an Earl Grey tea; two tea bags, please."

"I really thought you'd be a coffee person." Merlin tucked the book he'd brought to the cafe under his arm and watched Arthur add sugar, milk, and then more sugar to his hot, strong tea.

"I drank too much of it when I was at uni. I practically lived off coffee."

"And cigarettes?"

"For a bit… Not so much the cigarettes though. They didn't help my attempts at poetry much."

Merlin boggled at him for a moment before heading off to find a table. "So, what exactly did you do at uni? Aside from not sleep, apparently."

"Really. I was a very serious, sensitive poet." Arthur grinned down into his tea when Merlin boggled some more.

"You were not."

"I was. I promise. I did literature, and read Eliot and Pound and H.D., and listened to very fraught music."

"Hm. Arthur Penn, serious poet and Smiths fan. Was that going to go with the picture on the back of your first volume of poems?"

Arthur grinned again, though the expression slipped from his face and he hid his frown behind the fragrant bergamot steam. "Perhaps. I don't really think… that volume hasn't quite been finished yet."

"Well, you've still got years," Merlin murmured, and the tips of his fingers touched the back of Arthur's wrist.

During moments like this Arthur could envision those years unwinding around him at a steady, happy pace. There was no reason for him to not take up writing again; just as there was no reason for him to move away from Merlin, to not relish the delicate shiver of pleasure that raced up his spine and the fetching light in Merlin's eyes when he noticed Arthur's reaction.

"What about you?" he asked, and allowed himself the luxury of imagining Merlin's touch all over his body, at the small of his back and the center of his chest.

Merlin shrugged. "I think I've always wanted to be a nurse. I think my Mum hoped I'd want to be a doctor, like my uncle. But my father, he was a nurse, and he was always so proud of what he did. I love working with my patients."

"I can tell."

"Even when you're grumpy with me?"

"Ah, well, that's really not fair, given you've only seen me when I'm ill and grumpy."

"Not only," Merlin said, touched Arthur's wrist again, and added, "drink your tea," when a gust of wind and drizzle hit the window of the cafe.

And Arthur did. He drank his hot tea and listened to Merlin talk about his work, aware that this time he had no need to try and commit everything to memory. There would be other Saturday mornings to learn and re-learn the sound of Merlin's voice and to check if Merlin had on the heavy blue jumper with the slightly frayed cuffs or the really soft, comfortable red one that looked about a size too big for him.

Saturday after Saturday, and, oh, Arthur could see the weekends unraveling and spooling out in front of him. The first few times he'd encountered Merlin at the Indian place or the newsagents, he'd wondered when it would happen again. This morning, he knew, as soon as Merlin turned to him on the way out of the cafe, that somehow he could hand his wonder and his uncertainty over to Merlin.

He could, maybe, do with being looked after. Only a little, mind.

"So, Arthur. I've been thinking. Since, clearly, we like the same sort of take-away, and the same quiet Saturday morning spot, and ... All right. I'm not really sure I can say we like to do the same sort of grocery shopping, since you seem to still buy food like a uni student."

"Uni students don't shop at the organic market," Arthur pointed out. God. He was smiling. Foolishly. Completely and utterly foolishly.

Merlin thought for a second and did the head-tilting thing. "Right, I'll have to grant you that. You've moved up in the world, but haven't bothered to start eating like an adult. You need some looking-after, I suspect." He pressed his lips together and nodded. "Yeah. I've been thinking. We should start making arrangements to go to those places, and other places. Together. On purpose."

"Are you asking me out, Merlin?"

"Oh, I am most definitely asking you out. There's something to be said about dating officially, instead of accidentally."

"There might be some sort of professional conflict, I should think. Unless we end that relationship."

"I'd look after you," Merlin said, "in a non-professional context. Non-professional fussing from now on."

It was the first weekend in December, and the late autumn wind whipped around the corner of the street with an icy cold edge that stung Arthur's eyes and the tips of his ears as he talked to Merlin outside the cafe. Merlin shivered, winding his scarf around his neck and huddling down into his pea coat. He'd kept his glasses on, though his book had remained unopened and unread that morning, and Arthur had the incurable urge to push them back up Merlin's nose after glancing down to do up the buttons on his coat caused them to slip.

His fingertips felt a little numb from the chilly air, then a little tingly-warm from the brush of Merlin's skin against them.

"I was thinking. Maybe you're right."

"Of course I am." Merlin tilted his head to rest his cheek against the palm of Arthur's hand, tender and suddenly, heart-clenchingly dear.

"Of course you are," Arthur agreed and allowed himself one more moment to take it all in - the crisp, clean, cold morning, the scent of coffee and wool, the ticklish brush of Merlin's nose against his - and then they were kissing, folded warmly into each other.


End file.
